A legend in one's own mind: The link between ambition and leadership evaluations

Abstract Individuals who have more ambition—a persistent striving for success, attainment, and accomplishment—are more likely to become leaders. But are these ambitious individuals also more effective in leadership roles? We hypothesize that leader ambition is related to positive self-views of leader effectiveness that remain uncorroborated by relevant third-party actors. In a multiwave, preregistered study, we find evidence for this hypothesis using a sample of executives (N = 3,830 ratings of 472 leaders) who were rated by peers, subordinates, managers, and themselves on ten leadership competencies, including their ability to motivate others, manage collaborative work, coach and develop people, and present and communicate ideas. We consider the implications of our findings for both scholars and practitioners interested in leadership selection and development.

Van Den Akker, ..., Alzahawi, S.  Shilaan was also phenomenal from an organizational perspective.She kept everyone on track and engaged during our larger team meetings, made sure everyone had clear idea of expectations and events from week to week, and made sure that everyone in the room was given the space to speak and voice any questions, comments, or concerns." • "I worked with Shilaan during her time as a DSSG 2021 mentor.Shilaan is very knowledgeable and passionate about data science, open science, and research for social good, and I was very glad I had the chance to work with her.It was apparent that she deeply cared about all students in the program (not just her team) and put extra effort in making them feel welcome and excited.She was pro-active in dealing with potential problems and delays.Most importantly, she handled a difficult case of a student remarkably well (the student left in the middle of the program and the remaining two students had to finish the project in a very short time) and successfully led the students to the completion of their project." • "Shilaan is one of the most dedicated, professional, compentent, and effective teachers I have had the pleasure to work with.I worked with Shilaan as a peer in the Stanford Data Science Community and as her supervisee in the Data Science for Social Good program.As a supervisor, Shilaan designed support structures that greatly improved the program and students' experiences within it.For example, Shilaan had weekly one-on-one meetings with me to review how my students were doing and make suggestions on how to faciliatate difficult conversations, guide student work in the direction of program goals, and communicate with our community parters.Shilaan also created ample opportunities for students to gain experience in research presentation, brainstorming, and peer review; these types of graduate or professional level experiences are rare in an undergraduate program, and Shilaan did an incredible job making them accessible and helpful for young students.
As a colleague, Shilaan is invaluable.She has a singular ability to provide peer review, support, and suggestions.Even though I work in a completely separate field than Shilaan, she has consistently provided support and suggestions that guide my own research in new directions.Any institution should be delighted to welcome Shilaan in to their teaching and research community." February 12, 2024 Updated at shilaan.com/cv/alzahawi.pdf • "Shilaan was a very approachable and organized DSSG mentor.She did a great job planning social events and talks even though the program was online; she also went out of her way to give advice or talk through any problems.Definitely set the bar for organizing a virtual program!" • "Shilaan is an exceptional instuctor who engages students effectively.She cares about students and always foster a positive and inclusive working and learning environment for everyone." • "Shilaan Alzahawi excels in approachability and kindness, creating a positive and supportive environment for students." • "Awesome communciation.Every meeting was succinct.What was impressive was the good pace of the program despite that Shilaan was remote for a few weeks." • "As a mentor, Shilaan cares about both her team and takes responsibility about the progress of her project.As an organizer, Shilaan always make sure everyone is included in the conversation and their ideas and opinions heard.She is very well organized, open to new ideas and suggestions, great in communicating expectations and handles difficult conversations well.I learned a lot from Shilaan, and I really appreciate all of her efforts!" Negotiations (bit.ly/neg-22-evals)M = 4.90/5; SD = 0.32; Median = 5/5 • "Shilaan helped me to find a partner for the group assignment.She responded to student's request really quick, and is a lovely person/advisor/course assistant to talk to." Acting with Power (bit.ly/pwr-21-evals) M = 4.50/5; SD = 0.85; Median = 5/5 • "She's the best!Always on top of everything and the course always went smoothly, and Shilaan was super nice to me when I had to miss class so I appreciated that too!" • "Shilaan was excellent!Very organized and did an incredible job assisting my learning." • "Shilaan was always responsive to students asks and needs.All tech was organized flawlessly." • "Very organized." Data and Decisions (bit.ly/dd-21-evals)M = 4.92/5; SD = 0.29; Median = 5/5 • "Shilaan went above and beyond the expectations to which CAs are held -immensely helpful in breakout rooms, very responsive via email, and always eager to iterate with us on our endor-quarter regression project by bringing external insights and perspectives.Thanks for a great quarter, Shilaan!" • "Shilaan is AMAZING!Best Course Assistant for any class I've taken so far at the GSB.Thank you Shilaan for your clear explanations and patience!" • "Thank you for your help!!" • "Shilaan is incredible!Super helpful in her review sessions and very responsive to email / available to meet.Would love to have her TA all of my classes." • "Shilaan was an exceptional TA! Shows that she cares about her students!" • "Shilaan was incredible to work with in and outside of the class and was SO PATIENT.I cannot put into words how much help she was and how thankful I am for her." Abstract: Individuals who have more ambition-a persistent striving for success, attainment, and accomplishment-are more likely to become leaders.But are these ambitious individuals also more effective in leadership roles?We hypothesize that leader ambition is related to positive self-views of leader effectiveness that remain uncorroborated by relevant third-party actors.In a multi-wave, preregistered study, we find evidence for this hypothesis using a sample of executives (N = 3,830 ratings of 472 leaders) who were rated by peers, subordinates, managers, and themselves on ten leadership competencies, including their ability to motivate others, manage collaborative work, coach and develop people, and present and communicate ideas.We consider the implications of our findings for both scholars and practitioners interested in leadership selection and development.
Significance Statement: Using third-party evaluations of a leader's effectiveness captured in actual 360-degree assessments, we find that more ambitious individuals are judged as no more effective in a leadership role than their less ambitious peers.Nonetheless, more ambitious individuals hold more positive views of their own effectiveness and are more likely to pursue leadership roles.This discrepancy suggests that society may need an alternative approach to leadership development and selection.Leader recruitment is often "passive," waiting for applications to be submitted by aspiring leaders.Our findings show that the underlying premise-that individuals with the greatest leadership potential will self-select into leadership roles-may be unfounded.Rather than allowing ambitious individuals to dominate candidate pools for leadership opportunities, researchers and practitioners should consider ways to actively identify individuals who may be fully capable, but not fully confident, leaders.
Keywords: ambition, leadership, leader effectiveness, leader evaluations Alzahawi, S. & Flynn, F.J. Does Expressing Uncertainty Help or Harm Leaders?Revise and Resubmit (Minor Revision) at The Leadership Quarterly.
Abstract: Can leaders benefit from vocalizing uncertainty?Past research outlines two opposing positions.On one hand, individuals who express confidence signal competence and, as a result, attain greater influence in social groups.On the other hand, research on leader humility, authenticity, and self-disclosure suggests that leaders who express vulnerability, not conviction, achieve greater social influence.In this work, we attempt to reconcile these competing hypotheses by considering a third possibility-that expressing uncertainty may be beneficial in moderate doses, but detrimental in especially small or large doses.We propose five experimental studies to determine whether the link between expressed uncertainty and leader influence may be negative, positive, or curvilinear (i.e., inverse U-shaped).

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, ..., & Wicherts, J.M.The Effectiveness of Preregistration in Psychology: Assessing Preregistration Strictness and Preregistration-Study Consistency.Revise and Resubmit at Psychological Methods.SELECTED RESEARCH IN PROGRESS Alzahawi, S. & Flynn, F.J. Who Shall Lead?The Effectiveness Implications of Self-Selection into Leadership Roles.Alzahawi, S. & Monin, B. Lay Perceptions of Scientific Findings: Swayed by the Crowd?Alzahawi, S. Statistical Power Analysis for Mixed Effects Models: A Simulation-Based Approach.TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS A Legend in One's Own Mind: The Link Between Ambition and Leadership Evaluations • Texas A&M, Department of Management, Mays Business School, College Station, TX 2024 • Texas A&M, Public Service and Administration, College Station, TX 2024 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Diego, CA 2024 • Stanford Data Science 2023 • Rising Scholars Conference, MIT Sloan School of Management 2023 Does Expressing Uncertainty Help or Harm Leaders? • OB Research Incubator, Academy of Management, Boston, MA 2023 • Improving Leadership Research Around the Globe, Academy of Management, Boston, MA 2023 A Beginner's Guide to Version Control: Using GitHub in R.
• "Shilaan was a phenomenal head mentor during the year I served as a technical mentor for the Data Science for Social Good Program.She was always available to speak both with me and with my mentees, to discuss ongoing progress, next steps, and to troubleshoot both the technical and the professional aspects of working with key stakeholders on our projects.As a recent admission to a graduate program, this experience was, in many ways, my first foray into mentorship and development, and Shilaan was a phenomenal sounding board during the program.
• University of Toronto, Workshop on Reproducibility 2022 • Psychological Science Accelerator Conference 2021 • Harvard Business School, Rising Scholars Conference 2021 • Improving Psychological Science Symposium, Taiwan Psychological Association 2021 Teaching Assistant, Managing Groups and Teams, Stanford GSB Fall 2019, Fall 2021 Technical Mentor, Data Science for Social Good, Stanford Data Science Spring-Summer 2021 February 12, 2024 Updated at shilaan.com/cv/alzahawi.pdf Reit, E.S., & Flynn, F.J. A Legend in One's Own Mind: The Link Between Ambition and Leadership Evaluations.Revise and Resubmit at PNAS Nexus.